John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera: Brett Kavanaugh Is a Solid Choice to Join the Supreme Court

July 12, 2018

I’ve joined a number of evangelical leaders to formally support Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Here’s what we know.

On Monday night, President Trump announced his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to fill the seat being vacated by retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

The obvious question for Christians is—or at least it should be—”What can we expect from Kavanaugh, especially in regard to the sanctity of human life and religious freedom?”

It’s impossible, of course, to know that answer with absolute certainty. But there’s reason to be hopeful that Kavanaugh is a reliable conservative and certainly preferable over anyone a Democratic president would have nominated.

As far as his level of experience, Kavanaugh is among the most qualified candidates in the country. He currently serves on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, arguably the second-most important federal court.

Based on his judicial track record, conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt is probably close in calling Kavanaugh “John Roberts 2.0.” Now not everyone, especially after Roberts’s Obamacare decision, would consider that a compliment. Still, we can agree it’s better than being a “Kennedy 2.0.” Hewitt envisions Roberts and Kavanaugh leading a “new majority [that] will not invent new rights, but [that] will be busy protecting old ones… respectful of the states and their constitutionally protected sovereignty.”

By all accounts, his judicial philosophy is, as was articulated in a statement formally supporting Kavanaugh that I co-signed with dozens of evangelical leaders, to be “impartial and faithful to the Constitution as it is, not as he …wishes it to be.”

And in particular, his track record on religious freedom is why I’m comfortable, as our statement says, urging the Senate to “work diligently to confirm his appointment without obstruction.”